Here she is again, teetering at the brink between unseemliness and illegality.
It ought to have been instructive for Hillary Clinton and her husband at some point in their careers that their conduct so often grazed the barbed borders of the law.
But no lessons seem to have been learned from so many “teachable moments.”
A review of State Department calendars shows that of the non-government employees Clinton met with during her four-year tenure as secretary of state, over half were Clinton Foundation donors.
An AP review of the calendars shows 85 of the 154 people Clinton met with regarding private interests were donors who contributed a combined total of $156 million dollars, with at least 40 contributing $100,000 each.
Whatever good the Clinton Foundation itself does, the sloppy, near reckless arrangement shows no lessons learned from past scandals surrounding real estate deals, issuance of pardons and more.
This adds to previous Fox News reporting of numerous phone calls between top Clinton State Dept. aides and foundation employees during Clinton’s tenure, and after the State Department announced its review of close to 15,000 additional emails not previously disclosed by Clinton’s attorneys. Experts say these new emails show donors had “access” to the State Dept.
For Republicans, this latest batch of news adds to the narrative that Clinton used her time at the State Department to benefit donors to her family’s foundation. Speaking on “The Kelly File” Tuesday night, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that Clinton was “selling her time as secretary of state” to big-money foundation donors.
This narrative has become a key talking point for Donald Trump’s campaign with him repeatedly accusing Clinton of “pay for play” on the campaign trail.
The Clintons have said that they will stop accepting foreign donations if Hillary Clinton is election, but many are saying that doesn’t go far enough to avoid the perception that there’s more afoot here than simple matters of coincidence. And by admitting that the foundation should eventually stop taking foreign contributions, they themselves acknowledge the magnitude of the errors.
What matters, of course, is whether it matters to persuadable voters. It’s unlikely that this will do the trick, given how much aforementioned misconduct is already priced into Clinton’s poll numbers. But there is an awful lot swirling around out in the open ocean that could take the shape of a serious storm given the right conditions.
